Recently I blogged that the only path forward for American (and indeed world) health care was to harness the power of computers, software and communication technology to create a system that delivered significantly better care at a significantly lower cost.
This morning that system has come a little bit closer: Google has announced plans to build a new type of broadband network 100 times faster than current networks allow. The new networks, among other things, will allow high definition three-dimensional medical images to be sent from rural communities to specialist diagnosticians. This is just one part of an ongoing technological revolution that will change the way health care works in ways much wilder and more far-reaching than anything dreamed of in the current bills in Congress.
Promoting the development of technological advances like this one and creating policies and incentives that bring them quickly on line is the crucial task that, in the long term, will enable us to provide significantly better care to significantly larger numbers of people in an affordable fashion over the long term. If we succeed at this all our other health care problems will be manageable; if we fail, nothing else we do will give us the kind of health care system we need.
(Photo: Stanford School of Medicine 3D Radiology Department. For more 3D medical images, go here.)
There was a factoid I saw a few weeks ago that declared that the largest category of data now being stored in the infoverse was medical image data. In talking with an Indian-born colleague I commented that the obvious leverage there was to send those images over to Bangalore for analysis and then have a doctor in the USA just rubber-stamp the diagnosis and deliver the news and treatment to the patient. He indicated that this was already happening based on some fellows that he knew.
It’s merely an anecdote, but I think it aligns with Dr. Mead’s general view towards the increasing rate of change and creative destruction that he believes will characterize the coming years.
I very much look forward to new medical and information technology improving health care, but i very much doubt it will cut costs.
Like with x-rays or ct-scans, it seems likely we can reduce the per unit cost of diagnostics, but in doing so, people will moreso expect the technology to be available to them. Like with many things, improving efficiency may result in more aggregate consumption (ie cost) of healthcare, not less.
If we are to use technology to reduce cost, it will only be if people have to pay the price out of their own pocket, or a politically bitter fight for who doesn’t get access to the technology.